


Take My Tongue, Go Have Some Fun

by turinguntested



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (gratuitous), (largely implied), Angst, Angst and Porn, BDSM, Bad Decisions, Blindfolds, Blood, Bondage, Brain Surgery, Canon Compliant, College, Consensual Possession, Dream Sequences, Dream Sex, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flashbacks, Insecurity, Internalized Homophobia, Memory Alteration, Mild Gore, Mind Control, Mindfuck, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tentacles, The Mindscape, also regular possession, for example holding a unicorn at gunpoint, if you're into edgy theories about cartoons, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2018-06-05 19:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6720664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turinguntested/pseuds/turinguntested
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know I’m in the mindscape." Ford snapped. "You can only trick me so many times."</p><p>“Don’t be so sure, pal. I spent a lot of time in your head unsupervised. I might have crossed a few wires.” Bill gestured vaguely. “So we could spend a little more time in each other’s excellent company.”</p><p>It's the winter of 1984. Bill is a constant in Stanford's head, his dreams, and the surreal nightmare scenarios that have kept him living in forced isolation in the months since his muse betrayed him. The situation is escalating and Ford is getting desperate...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on a bet. The other person has yet to come through, but goddamn if I didn't write almost 10k words of cartoon smut and angst. That I'm actually kind of into at this point. Suffer with me.
> 
> Title from the Mother Mother song "Body," btw.

The text on modern witchcraft Stanford was reading was utterly engrossing. When he looked up for a moment to take a sip of his coffee, his desk lamp was the only island of light in the dark dorm room. And the coffee was ice cold. Ford made a disgusted face and set the mug back down. 

He glanced over to check the time on his alarm clock, but paused when he saw Fiddleford on his bed. His friend was fast asleep face down on a stack of textbooks, glasses askew. Ford smiled, appreciating the way his face softened in sleep. He was well aware that it was hypocritical of him, but he hated watching his friend work himself to the bone and go days without sleep. Fiddleford was much handsomer without the dark circles under his eyes and the tension in his expression.

Ford winced at his train of thought and rose stiffly from his desk chair. Carefully, he slid his hand under Fiddleford’s cheek, dislodging the books and lowering his head gently onto a pillow. His palm hovered over Fiddleford’s disheveled blonde hair for a moment. 

“…Ford..?” Fiddleford mumbled. One of his hands disentangled itself from the sheets and curled lightly around Ford’s wrist, sending a few highlighters clattering to the floor. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up before class.” Ford broke Fiddleford’s grip, and the other man grumbled quietly before shoving his face back into the pillow. Yawning, Ford turned to make his way back to his desk. 

“You should really have been nicer to him.” The sharp voice was loud enough that Ford could feel it buzzing in his teeth. It felt like whoever was speaking was lodged in his skull.

His desk was a lot farther away than it should have been in his tiny dorm room, and someone else was sitting at it. It was Fiddleford, head in his hands, eyes glassy from exhaustion. The desk lamp was still an island of light in a dark room, but this was a much vaster darkness. High up and far in the background, Ford could detect slight glints of light catching on metal. 

“You both had all these gross mushy feelings.” Bill continued as Ford’s body stepped away from him and towards Fiddleford’s back. “But you were too ashamed, Fordsie. It’s a pity. He came around so fast to me.” 

Ford watched from behind himself as he rested his hands gently on Fiddleford’s shoulders. He watched the other man flinch in surprise, and saw the guarded look in his eyes as he sat up and shot a skeptical glance back at Ford. But he was left to guess at how it felt when Fiddleford’s shoulders slumped and he leaned forward onto the desk again. He didn’t know what his voice said into Fiddleford’s ear, could only hear a faint wordless murmur and see the nervous smile on his face.

His thumbs dug into the tense muscles of Fiddleford’s neck, and Ford was momentarily mesmerized by his friend’s full pink lips as his mouth fell open in a gentle gasp. 

“This never happened.” He said, somewhere else. Fiddleford’s elegant fingers were grasping desperately at his headboard and he was trying not to look. 

“Happened and didn’t happen are relative, Stanford.” Bill said. He dragged Ford’s hand down Fiddleford’s flushed chest. Ford met his own gaze and was given a smug, toothy smile that was decidedly not his.

“The way I see it, you wanted this. You still want it. But ‘real’ or not I’m the one getting it.” Bill purred.

Throat tight and heart pounding, Ford watched his fingers unbuckle Fiddleford’s belt. Blackness leached into the scene from behind him. The last thing to vanish was Ford’s glowing eyes- Bill winked, and everything was gone. 

“Fine, smart guy.” Bill’s voice wasn’t lodged in his skull anymore; instead it inundated the pulsing darkness around him. Ford tried to inhale and the dark crept down his throat. “We’ll use a definition of reality we can both agree on. Remember this?”

“What?” Ford gasped after a few sharp coughs. He reached out to the receding black substance- it felt like dragging his fingers through syrup. He didn’t have any idea where he was or how he’d gotten there.

“Nothing, Stanford. Don’t panic on me now. You’re dreaming, remember.” 

Ford grinned, mildly relieved.

“Bill. Where are you?” 

Half a dozen eyes with slit pupils slid onto the rippling surface of the blackness in front of him. 

“Everywhere.” Bill’s voice deepened, echoed more. Rather disconcertingly, Ford could feel the vibrations of it in his feet. 

“This doesn’t seem like work.” Ford said, shifting his weight. “What are we doing?”

“Aww, Fordsie, you can’t work all the time. Even you’ve gotta relax every once in a while.” A familiar three-fingered hand, barely distinguishable against the black background, extended towards him out of the fog. “So what do you say, partner? Accept my hospitality for a little while?” 

Ford took Bill’s hand. It remolded itself in its palm, forming a firm black…tentacle? The appendage curled around Ford’s wrist. It was smooth as glass, and so dark that it looked more like empty space than a three dimensional object. Ford stared at it. He felt something brush his ankle. 

“Uh.” Ford gulped. “What are you-”

“Oh, hush. I’m not going to hurt you.” Bill said, and this time the voice sounded like it was coming from right behind Ford’s left shoulder. “I’ve been meaning to show you some of the neat stuff I can do in the mindscape.”

Ford tried to turn so he could see where the voice was coming from, but another tentacle wound securely around his torso and stopped the movement. Panic was tightening like a knot in Ford’s stomach, and his breath was coming faster. 

“Trust me, Ford.” Bill said. Fingers carded gently through Ford’s hair. Many fingers. He took a deep, shaky breath and closed his eyes. It only amplified the sensation of the tentacles dragging across his skin. One of them was curling under the hem of his shirt now, lightly enough that it almost tickled. 

“I-I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with this.” Ford said. His voice cracked. There was an urgent feeling in the back of his mind, like there was something he really needed to remember but was just barely evading his grasp.

“Come on, now. Haven’t I been helpful? Haven’t all my suggestions turned out for the best so far?” Bill asked. A thin tendril looped through the top buttonhole of Ford’s shirt. “I don’t know why it would be such a hardship for you to do me this one little favor.”

“Um… okay. Okay.” Ford said. “If you can promise I won’t be… damaged.”

“Not at all, IQ!” Bill said. “You’ll wake up in one sane and healthy piece.”

There was a tentacle curled around his neck, snug enough that it felt constricting when he swallowed. The tip brushed the back of his ear. It produced a strange prickling sensation, as if it was coated with tiny suction cups. His fingers twitched but he couldn’t move much else. He could also feel the prickling against his hip, but he couldn’t get a good look at it- even if he could move his head more than an inch without choking himself, it appeared as though the entire lower half of his body was covered by a writhing black mass. At some point his shirt had been unbuttoned and his chest was bare. 

A black stalk bulged out of the fog near his face, and a familiar slit-pupiled eye blinked open on its terminus. It looked him up and down, then a soft, fleshy black fold of… something swept down to cover his eyes. 

Ford yelped in surprise and kicked ineffectually against his bindings. The struggling was almost involuntary, driven by mindless panic, and he didn’t stop until the exertion left him panting. Nothing had changed, he was still blindfolded, and a tentacle was feeding itself carefully down the front of his pants.

“We’re in the mindscape, Fordsie! Try to remember, anything is possible here. If you really didn’t want this, if you weren’t the slightest bit curious about what I have lined up for you…” the appendage around his throat tightened, tipping up his chin and making a bizarrely unexpected pang of arousal shoot through his abdomen. He couldn’t see it, but he imagined the swarm of eyes from earlier drifting on the fog (skin? Flesh?) around him, this ageless and godly being voyeuristically amused by his debauched state. 

“If you really wanted to, you could break these as easy as a baby’s fingers!” Bill chuckled, the noise sharp and close.

The tentacle in Ford’s pants dragged seemingly by accident over the head of his cock while the tip curled against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. Ford yelped and jumped, and it rapidly tried to repeat the movement. 

Bill made a thoughtful noise as Ford’s pants and undergarments were pulled off. He barely had to recognize the sensation of the fabric brushing his calves before he was naked and something curled around his cock.

“I mean correct me if I’m wrong here, but this doesn’t seem like a normal expression of human sexuality.” Bill mused as Ford made a choking noise and kicked involuntarily against the restraints. His eyes were shut tight under the blindfold, and while he tried to compose a reply, another appendage teasing his slit cut it off into a moan. The blush spreading down Ford’s neck was at least half shame. Maybe a third. Definitely a quarter at the very lowest.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Bill said into Ford’s ear. “We’re here because you’re special, remember? I’m not interested in normal humans.” His tone changed and everything buzzed with the reverb. “But I am very, very interested in this.”

The prickling suction cup feeling cascaded down his body and Ford screamed, voice cracking. One of the tentacles, slick with something Ford didn’t want to give much thought to, rubbed against his entrance. 

His orgasm was sharp and sudden, heat radiating through his limbs. Ford gasped through it, every exhale a whimper. When the tentacles dropped him he didn’t have nearly enough motor control to keep his knees from cracking on the ground (floor, perhaps? It was an endless, vaguely shiny black surface). Before he could wonder about it for too long, the last ten months of memories came crashing back.

“Fuck.” Ford said, as Bill’s cane came down on the back of his neck and slammed his face into the floor.

“Ever eloquent, Fordsie.” Bill responded, voice back to its normal tinny tone. “So, what do you have to say about that lovely blast from the past? You’re all wrapped up in self-hatred about wanting men but you seemed to enjoy yourself. I even seem to remember begging on occasion.”

Bill chuckled “All ‘please Bill, fuck me.’ Yeesh. It must be a real mess in there.” He rapped Ford’s skull hard with the tip of the cane. 

“Good morning, Stanford! See you real soon!”

Ford woke with a start and bolted upright, triggering a surge of dizziness and almost toppling off of his chair. His head throbbed dully, and the journal page his face had been resting on was smudged. According to his watch, he had been asleep for a little over two hours. If anything, he felt worse than he had when he’d passed out. 

He rose from his chair and limped stiffly towards the stairs. In the kitchen, he considered brewing coffee but decided on tea instead. He had long since discovered that after a certain level of sleep deprivation, the extra caffeine just made him shakier and more paranoid. 

He would have to go to town for a supply run before long; he was running out of food. The prospect made him scowl into his mug. After he finished his tea and toast, he headed to his bedroom to retrieve his crossbow, as well as his handgun and holster. If he happened across any game in the woods today he could put it off a little longer. 

It was a grey day outside- most days in Oregon were grey, after all. It had never bothered him that much before all this. Now he kept trying to find a hint of color in to the tips of the leafless trees or the infrequent patches of grass revealed by the melting snow. That combined with the pervasive feeling of being followed, which plagued him whenever he left the relative safety of his house, left him feeling tense and miserable by the time he reached his destination. 

Ford began the chant but his voice cracked. With a sigh, he cleared his throat and started over. He made it to the end on the third try, but immediately started coughing afterwards and rummaged through his bag for his flask. The magical home of the unicorns rising from the forest had sort of lost its novelty anyway, after the tenth or fifteenth time he’d been back here. 

“Ughhhhhhhh.” Celestabellebethabelle groaned. “Why must you insist on returning to my realm and distressing unicorn kind with your cruel and ugly soul, Stanford Pines?”

Ford was still at the gate, unlacing his boots. He gritted his teeth and took a few calming breaths. 

“You have to realize, you…” Ford gestured vaguely at the unicorn. “You glorified pointy horse, the fate of the world is at stake here. Even if I’m not ‘pure of heart,’ someone is, right? At least one person in the entire world is good enough for you to give some hair to save.” 

“I’m not so sure. Those other people that you’ve brought here were almost as bad as you.” Celestabellebethabelle narrowed her eyes and turned away from him with a haughty flick of her mane. 

Ford scowled as the unicorn proceeded to wander over to her sparkling waterfall and pointedly ignore him. A few long minutes later, she glanced over her shoulder.

“You can go now, Stanford Pines.” She said dismissively. “The door is right that way.”

With a noise only describable as a growl, Ford drew his pistol and pointed it at the unicorn. 

“You can say all you want about me. I know I’m not pure of heart.” His hand gripping the weapon didn’t shake, and he thought about all those times when it wasn’t his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was in control of it right then either. Celestabellebethabelle froze. Her eyes were wide with genuine fear. It was oddly satisfying. 

“But good person or not, I’m not bad enough to let the world burn for my mistakes. I will stop him, no matter what it takes.” Ford walked towards Celestabellebethabelle, and the muzzle of the gun bumped gently against her forehead. “I will do anything.” Ford repeated. She was stock still except for her tail, which was shaking. 

Ford lowered the gun.

“I’m sorry.” He said bitterly, scrubbing a hand across his face. “I shouldn’t have done that. I guess it proves you right though.” He shoved the gun back into its holster. “I’m sure you’re thrilled.” 

“I could sense the violence in your heart from the moment I first saw you.” Celestabellebethabelle screeched, scrambling backward. “Be gone, and do not show your face in my realm again!”

Ford picked up his boots and stomped out of the gate. Not two steps later, his socked foot splashed into an icy puddle. Cursing, he rushed back to the tree line and sat on a rock to don his shoes. 

Very distant music drifted briefly through the trees. An instant later, there was a loud pop and a flash of light. When Ford jumped up (coincidentally soaking his other sock in another puddle) Bill was floating above him. 

“I used to wonder what friendship could be- until you all shared it’s magic with me.” The demon sang, tuneless and gleeful. “My little pony, my little pony.” He clapped his hands together and the music faded. “Gosh, I just LOVE unicorns, don’t you? So entertaining.”

“Do you have anything, literally anything better to do than constantly harass me like a goddamn toddler?” Ford snarled.

“Nope!” Bill responded brightly. 

Rolling his eyes, Ford pulled on his other boot and started walking homewards. Bill cartwheeled lazily through the air behind him. 

“Gee, Fordsie, you look awfully tired!” Bill commented, “Have you been getting your nightly eight hours of beauty sleep? You should really take better care of yourself. Nobody else is going to, now that you’re a crazy woodland hermit that abused everyone he cared about until they abandoned him!”

Ford remained silent

“I’ve heard guilt makes people have weird dreams.” Bill snorted with laughter. “I mean, technically, I know the contents of every book that’s ever existed, even those shady dream dictionary ones. What do ya say, IQ, want to talk about it? Maybe we should jump straight to Freudian symbology.” 

When Bill’s fit of giggling at his own joke finally trailed off, he floated closer until it almost seemed like he was going to perch on Ford’s shoulder. Ford ground his teeth but continued ignoring the demon as best he could. 

“Do you really want me to leave you alone for a while?” Bill said loudly into Ford’s ear. He winced as the noise exacerbated the tight pain behind his eyes. 

“Well. Obviously. Of course I do.” Ford snapped. 

“I guess I can do that.” Bill said, and the shadows grew tendrils and crept closer through the trees for a moment. Then, the whole world seemed to exhale and Bill flickered out of existence. 

Ford picked himself up off the ground and walked home in peace. He didn’t know why he’d passed out in the middle of the woods, while sitting down no less, and the whole event was disconcerting. Especially since whenever Bill was involved Ford assumed there was going to be some kind of foul play.

Back at the cabin, his “ways to get rid of Bill” paper pile had devoured the entire seating space of his sofa. He was halfway through rehashing its entire contents when there was a polite knock on his door. Surprised, Ford looked up from his work. Just when he was willing to accept the noise had been something else- the house settling, maybe- it came again. It was less polite, this time, graduating from clear, sharp raps to heavy thuds that had the door rattling in its frame. With some trepidation, Ford stood up and made his way over. He drew back the deadbolt and then cracked the door open as far as the chain would allow. 

When he peered outside, a pair of wide, slit-pupiled eyes were inches away. Ford recoiled, and Bill’s smile on the mayor’s face pressed even closer to the door.

“I found a new playmate, Ford!” Bill announced, shoving his arm inside to fumble for the chain. The opening was a hair too narrow and his knuckles were scraped bloody on the frame. “This old man, he was even more gullible than you are. Not quite as much fun, though. So I thought we’d visit.” He retracted the arm to slam it through the window instead. Mayor Befufftlefumpter’s soft, wrinkled hands clawed at the remaining glass with bloody single-mindedness. Bill’s laugh had the open, involuntary quality of someone being tickled. It washed over Ford in waves like his panic.

He didn’t remember taking his pistol out of its holster, but it was in his hand. In his hand and pointed at Bill’s borrowed, grinning face as his shoulders slid through the window. Choking on a sob, Ford pulled the trigger. 

And fell heavily off of the couch as he woke up. With a groan, he hauled himself back to a sitting position. His reflection stared back at him from the black screen of the tv, or rather what was visible of it behind the taped up papers that covered every available surface of the room. There were tear tracks down his cheeks. Ford moved to rub his eyes and was startled by how badly his hands were shaking. 

‘Last Resorts: Improbable/dangerous” said the red ink notation on the spine of the binder leaning against the VCR. Ford reached for it, but flinched so violently when someone knocked on the door that the notebook and the VCR crashed to the ground.

“Hello?” called the person at the door. It didn’t sound like Bill, not really, but Ford could easily convince himself there was a sharp edge to the words, a suppressed laugh at the end of the vowel. He approached the door warily, still feeling an urge to wipe dreamed blood spatter off of his face and hands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! I'm pretty stuck on parts of chapter three but i figured I might as well put up what I had. Enjoy!

Ford didn’t open the deadbolt, didn’t even twitch open the curtain.

“What do you want?” He snapped at the door.

“Um.” The stranger said. “Someone, erm, Bill? Called and said there was a medical emergency. It’s really better to call 911 for this sort of thing, but he hung up too fast for me to tell him and I was worried. He said something- about a dangerous last resort? Dangerous and improbable.” He laughed nervously

“Didn’t seem like he was operating on all cylinders, if you know what I mean.” The man continued. “Unless you’re Bill! In which case, geez, sorry, no offense. But I figured I’d better come and check up on the situation.”

Ford opened his mouth but nothing came out. He rested his fingers on the deadbolt and then took them off.

“I’m going have to call 911 if you don’t open the door.” The stranger sounded like he meant it.

Ford sucked a breath through his teeth and opened the door. His unexpected guest looked tense but deeply relieved to see him intact, albeit probably haggard and wild eyed. 

“Oh, good, glad to see you’re alright.” It was the town doctor, as Ford probably could have guessed. He was a young man, although his short curly hair had started creeping back at the temples. Ford couldn’t quite recall his name, but he remembered he had inherited his small rural practice from his mother. The two stared awkwardly at each other and Ford searched frantically for a way to politely deflect the doctor’s concern.

There was a loud bang and Ford instinctively flattened himself against the wall. The doctor, seemingly oblivious to the noise, raised his eyebrows. Bill floated down between them

“What are you doing?” Ford said, trying to sound angry but mostly just managing tired and frightened.

“Eh, just forcing the situation.” Bill said, leaning one hand absently on the doctor’s head and straightening his bowtie.

“Who are you talking to?” The doctor asked. 

“I know I’m in the mindscape. I don’t know why I’ve been passing out, but you can only trick me so many times.” Ford snapped.

“Don’t be so sure, pal. I spent a lot of time in your head unsupervised. I might have crossed a wire or two.” Bill gestured vaguely. “So we could spend a little more time in each other’s excellent company.”

“You’re lying.” Ford insisted.

“Okay, if that’s your bet, let him go.” Bill shrugged.

“I’m going to have to call an ambulance.” The doctor told him, beginning to sidle slowly off of the deck. “Please try to stay calm.”

Ford reached out and grabbed him by the bicep. 

“Just wait a second.” He said. There was an edge of desperation in his voice and the doctor didn’t look convinced. 

“Please step back, sir. I think you’re having a psychotic episode. You have to go to the hospital.”

“Oh wow. All those people and all those knives!” Bill exclaimed. “Sounds like a party.”

“Goddamnit.” Ford said. “I’m genuinely sorry about this.” And then he slammed the doctor’s head into the doorframe, knocking him unconscious. 

When he had dragged the unconscious man into his entryway, he paused and looked around. Bill was nowhere to be seen. He pinched himself. Nothing happened.

The sun was just beginning to brush the horizon. It was obvious that his safest course of action would have been to head down to the lab, grab his prototype of Fiddleford’s memory-erasing gun, and get the doctor back into his car before he woke up, at which point he would drive home, confused and disoriented and none the wiser about Ford’s apparent slow descent into madness.

But if Bill had somehow become able to torment him while he was awake, that made the situation far direr than it had been. And if he was dreaming the whole thing, than nothing Ford did would really hurt anyone, anyway. Feeling distinctly criminal and more than a little nauseous, Ford carried the doctor downstairs and set about tying him to his desk chair. He retrieved the memory-erasing gun and set it on a shelf. Then he gritted his teeth and started looking for the mind control tie. 

When the doctor came to, Ford checked if he was concussed and then drugged him. It was a little risky to use the sedatives he’d developed for the shapeshifter on a human, but decidedly more risky to leave the mind control device on him without input and he just- he wouldn’t have been able to handle the doctor awake and mindlessly staring at him while he finished his preparations. 

He wished there was more time to set things up, finish the program, maybe learn even a mediocre amount about brain surgery before he performed it on himself via human puppet. There wasn’t. The prospect of what would happen if he was discovered with a kidnapped and drugged missing person in his basement was more horrifying than potential death, anyway. Bill’s obsessive special interest would undoubtedly make prison a living hell, and there would be a lot of collateral damage.

Ford slipped the tie over the doctor’s neck, put his computer and the memory erasing gun in his bag, and tried not to fall asleep while he waited for the sedatives to wear off.

It was well after dark when they set off through the woods, Ford piloting the doctor via his laptop like a macabre version of the toy robots he’d built as a child. He had put on a headlamp before he left the house, but the light didn’t really reach far enough for both of them, and the rough ground tripped the doctor up several times. Once, his foot caught on a root and Ford didn’t react fast enough to keep him from sprawling face first on the ground. 

“Sorry.” Ford muttered with a wince. The doctor made no move to wipe the blood from his nose- he couldn’t, after all, and Ford’s manual controls were too rudimentary to guide the movement. It dripped sluggishly onto the ground. They kept walking. 

The doctor’s first few steps down the steep stairs to Ford’s bunker were nerve wracking enough that Ford decided to carry him down instead. When they finally reached the bottom, Ford was breathing heavy and sweating under the weight of the body slung over his shoulder. He set the doctor down, breathed for a minute, and then marched him into the research lab. 

This wasn’t the first time Ford had considered drastic measures to protect himself from Bill. His laboratory was littered with gleaming machine parts and medical equipment he’d repurposed from the alien wreckage. 

When Ford had first hypothesized that implanting a metal plate over his skull would keep Bill out, he had already been desperate enough to explore the possibility. The first thing he had tried was reprogramming the wreck’s medbay to operate on him. It was intensely sophisticated and wholly automatic, consisting mainly of a gurney surrounded by a spidery tangle of robotic limbs. However, the anatomy it was designed to treat was decidedly not terrestrial, and the interface was largely unintelligible. Ford had tried it on rats and couldn’t get it to do anything even vaguely resembling what he intended. After a particularly memorable trial that had ended up with the rat still alive but turned perfectly inside out, he had stripped the useful parts and started thinking about a plan B.

As Ford sat on his gurney and scrolled through the doctor’s list of commands one more time, he didn’t feel all that confident about his plan. It didn’t seem much less daunting than climbing into the alien machine and letting it dissect him. The doctor was standing in the corner, staring blankly at the wall. Ford’s finger hovered over the run button for a moment before pressing it. The doctor started and shook his head, looking a little disoriented. He blinked at Ford, who glanced over to watch the lines of code scrolling rapidly down his screen. After a moment, the doctor moved next to the gurney and picked up the anesthesia mask. 

Ford exhaled, long and slow, and put the mask on. He laid down on the gurney.

“Please count backwards slowly from one hundred.” The doctor told him, voice hollow. Ford obeyed and slipped rapidly into darkness. 

The blackness was tight and cloying. Ford tried to move and could only twitch his fingers. There was a sharp prickling on the back of his neck. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. His quickening heartbeat thudded in his ears. 

“Hey, calm down.” The voice was terribly familiar, and Ford struggled harder.

“No, calm down.” Bill drifted into his line of sight, laid a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, Ford was free to move. “This is, this is quite a drastic choice you made here. And all for what?”

“You know for what.” Ford hissed, hoarse and shaky. 

“I mean, I guess.” Bill said. “You think that I actually cause the paranoid nightmares you have about me and that performing brain surgery on yourself via puppet is going to stop them. Because you’re exhausted, and desperate. And- let’s face it- more than a little off the rails at this point.” He made a show of lifting his hand next to his bowtie as if he was whispering conspiratorially behind it. “And you’re great at blaming other people for your problems.”

Ford felt deeply tired. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. 

“I don’t know why you’re even trying these games anymore. After this you’re either going to be shut out of my head or I’m going to be dead, which will be effectively the same.” He looked the demon levelly in the eye. “Do what you want. Won’t change the fact that your time is running out, Bill.”

“I’m offended by your implication.” Bill said, with a dramatic gasp. “We’re pals, Fordsie. I know you backed out on our agreement, but the idea that I’d torture you for it? Absurd. I thought we’d established that you’re the one who’s a terrible friend and a terrible person.”

Bill raised a hand to halt Ford’s retort.

“And just to bring that fact home to you, I’ve taken time out of my busy schedule to come and help you out here.”

“Are you-“ Ford interrupted himself with a startled laugh. “Are you actually trying to change my mind? After all this? What, you think one new theorem will have me waking up on the gurney ready to go home and start calling you my muse again?” He shook his head, still smiling. “I know understanding humans isn’t your forte, so let me spell it out for you. That will never happen. I would attempt a synchronized swimming routine with a great white shark while doused in cow blood before I made another deal with you.”

“Oh, I know.”

“What?”

“I know.” Fiddleford said, voice tense and shaky. “I know this is inappropriate, and I know it’s, it’s probably disgusting to you, but I just couldn’t stand the feeling of being dishonest. I understand if you want- if you don’t want to be around me-”

“Fiddleford- Fidd, no.” Ford’s hand fluttered awkwardly over Fiddleford’s, brushed his knuckles and then retreated. “Of course I want to be around you. I don’t care if you’re a homosexual.” 

“Bisexual.” Fiddleford corrected.

“Bisexual. Of course you’re still my friend.” Ford chuckled. “It’s not like I have many to spare.” 

“Thanks, Ford.” Fiddleford stood up and moved around the table to throw his arms around Ford. The hug was warm, and emotional, and deeply uncomfortable for Ford. He rested his hand on the other man’s shoulder lightly. Fiddleford was a little taller, and his arms were snug around Ford’s shoulders. Their chests were pressed so close together Ford could feel him breathing, and when he started to pull away it felt like he was dragging something from under Ford’s ribcage away with him.

There was a confused half smile on Fiddleford’s face when Ford’s hand tightened on his bicep. He was blushing a little, high on his cheekbones, and his hair was grown out long enough that there were stray curls hanging over his eyes. 

Ford didn’t really intend to lean in and kiss him. It was short and chaste, a little awkward because their noses bumped before he got the angle right.

More or less the instant he realized what he was doing, Ford pulled away and took a half step backward. Fiddleford was looking at him with the same concerted wrinkle between his eyebrows he had when neck deep in inexplicable data. Ford’s hands fluttered nervously by his sides.

“What are you trying to do, Ford?” Fiddleford asked, in a carefully moderate voice with only a slight tremor at the end. 

“I, uh.” Ford responded. “I’m gay. Maybe. I mean, the evidence suggests-“ He cut himself off as Fiddleford closed the distance between them and curled his fingers around Ford’s bicep. 

And then Fiddleford was kissing him, pressed close against his chest. He tasted like chai tea, and his fingers were cool when they trailed along Ford’s jaw but his body was impossibly hot even through two layers of cloth. When he teased Ford’s lower lip with his teeth, Ford’s arms reflexively came up to draw him closer. One hand cupped the back of Fiddleford’s neck and the other rested against his ribs, the staccato rhythm of his heartbeat thrumming frantically under Ford’s fingertips. 

He wasn’t totally sure what he was doing with the whole making out thing, but Fiddleford seemed to be and was pressing into him like he wanted to climb into Ford’s ribcage. Then, just as suddenly as it began, Fiddleford broke the kiss and burrowed his head into the join between Ford’s neck and shoulder instead. 

Ford stroked across the line of his shoulders and Fiddleford tensed, maybe flinched at the touch. 

“Is everything- Are you okay?” He blurted out. 

“That was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have done that.” Fiddleford responded, voice slightly muffled by the fact he was still hiding his face in Ford’s shirt. 

“Uhm. Sorry?” Ford tried, very halfheartedly attempting to step out of the hug. He figured that was probably what Fiddleford wanted, but the other man was still hanging on to him for dear life. 

“No, no don’t be ridiculous. You shouldn’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. We should just- I mean, I should-” Fiddleford sighed heavily. “I value our friendship and I don’t want to ruin it by making any…rash decisions.” 

“Oh. Alright then.” Ford said, carefully trying to keep the way he felt like he’d been kicked in the gut out of his voice. He pulled Fiddleford away from him, a little more gently then he was intending. 

“Maybe you should go.” Ford’s attempt at a reassuring smile was fake and weak, but Fiddleford looked like he might have been blinking back tears. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” 

Fiddleford ducked his head and left in silence. 

It was late that night, and Ford had given up on working. Sometimes there was just too much going on in his head for him to be able to focus on his books, and so he would shut the lights off and try to get some sleep. This was one of those times, but he was currently as far from sleep as it was humanly possible to be. He was so fed up with the incessant whirling of his thoughts that he was almost relieved when a knock on his door interrupted them. 

Fiddleford looked sallow and tired in the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. The wry twist of his lips was somewhat sheepish. 

“I hope I didn’t wake you.” He said. 

Ford absently scratched his jaw. It was rough with a day’s worth of stubble. Fiddleford was clean shaven, pale skin over elegant cheekbones and the hollow of his clavicle just poking out from the collar of his undershirt. Ford felt somewhat like an ape in front of a Grecian marble statue. As always. 

“No, I was up.” Ford responded. “Had a lot to think about.”

“Can I come in?” 

“Of course.” Ford stepped back from the door and Fiddleford slipped past him. He closed the door and turned to see Fiddleford’s silhouette sitting on his bed, his back a tense line. At first, Ford sat down a respectful foot away from him. It only took a moment for Fiddleford to slip closer. Their shoulders were brushing.

“I started that conversation today because I didn’t want to lie to you.” Fiddleford said. “I feel like if we ignore what happened… that would be just as much of a lie.”

“What other choice do we have?” Ford responded. His voice sounded harsher than he wanted it to. In response, Fiddleford only shrugs.

“Well.” He started after a few beats of silence. “You could kiss me again.” His knee bumped Ford’s lightly, and there was just enough moonlight in the room that Ford could see him folding and unfolding his hands in his lap. That was probably what tipped him over the edge, the familiar nervous tick and the taught thread of worry it evoked in the back of Ford’s mind. 

He put his arm around Fiddleford and pulled him close. The boney point of his shoulder dug sharply into Ford’s chest, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. He leaned down and brushed his lips along Fiddleford’s hairline. 

“Are we sure about this?” Fiddleford asked quietly. He’s peering up at Ford through his wild curls. 

“Hey, no theory should be dismissed without thorough testing.” Ford smoothed a hand through Fiddleford’s hair. It was as soft as it looked. Slowly and a little awkwardly, Fiddleford swung his leg over Ford’s and settled into his lap. Ford knew his friend’s joints hurt after a long day on his feet in lab and brought a hand up to steady him as he arranged himself into a more comfortable position. 

He traced his hand up the line of Fiddleford’s spine and smoothed a thumb over the nape of his neck, feeling callouses he’d acquired in his robotics lab catch on Fiddleford’s skin. 

Ford had never felt entirely comfortable in his skin, especially since it had been reminding him of his father’s entirely too much lately. The feeling of Fiddleford’s slender ribcage rising and falling between his broad, rough palmed hands was a vaguely disconcerting one. 

Fiddleford had to lean down significantly to kiss him, and Ford ended up bracing his hands on the bed behind him to lean back and make the angle more comfortable. Fiddleford’s hand creeps under the hem of his faded math team tee shirt and slides up his side in a way that would have been ticklish if it hadn’t had so much intent behind it. 

Even though Ford wasn’t technically a virgin, the nearly anonymous girl Stan had talked him into bringing home after a high school dance had not prepared him for the way he felt when Fiddleford pushed him back onto the bed, tongue in his mouth, thigh insinuating itself between Ford’s even though their feet still dangled off the narrow dorm bed. 

After a few moments, they broke apart and Fiddleford gently bumped his forehead against Ford’s. His eyes looked like they were glowing in the darkness, faintly. Ford grinned helplessly up at him. 

“Yeah.” He said. “I think I’m sure about this.” 

Chuckling, Fiddleford flopped down on the mattress. When Ford turned to look at him, they were nose to nose. Ford was half hard, but it didn’t seem pressing enough to look away from Fiddleford’s bright eyes and shatter the moment. 

“Can I stay here tonight?” Fiddleford asked. Ford nodded and then realized it was probably invisible in the darkness.

“Please do.” He answered. With a low sigh of contentment, Fiddleford rolled over and pressed his back against Ford’s chest. The bed was not nearly big enough for two fully grown men and Ford was certain his arm was going to fall asleep from Fiddleford’s weight on it, but right then he wouldn’t have changed a single thing. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only been what, a year and a half? welcome to the thrilling conclusion :D

Ford blinked awake when a sunbeam crept into his eyes from the bent slat of his blinds. His neck was sore and when he tried to shift into a more comfortable position he noticed Fiddleford was awake. The other man turned his head to watch Ford as he sat up and stretched. 

“Ugh, eight am already?” Ford said with a groan as he glanced over to the alarm clock. “I have class at nine.” Then he got up and tripped over his desk chair, which was rather disconcertingly on the other side of the room from where it had been the previous night. He leaned over to rub his shin and stared suspiciously at the door, which was supposed to be right by the foot of his bed but currently existed nonchalantly next to his closet. 

“It’s Saturday.” Fiddleford said. 

“No, it’s not.” Ford answered, narrowing his eyes at the door while he looked for a towel. “I had robotics yesterday. It’s Wednesday.”

Fiddleford rapped the display of the alarm clock with his knuckles. The fact it had a date function was news to Ford, but it did say ‘SAT. 4/11’ in the upper right hand corner. 

“Well, alright.” Fiddleford conceded. “I guess that explains why the alarm didn’t go off.” He tried to shake off his disorientation.

“Maybe I really do need to sleep more.” He concluded, and Fiddleford raised an eyebrow at him. “Anyway, I should go shower.”

“Mmm, and I should get dressed.” Fiddleford agreed. “We really ought to go to the library today, those astrophysics term papers aren’t going to source themselves.”

“Don’t remind me.” Ford said. Fiddleford rolled his eyes and climbed out of bed, cracking his back and yawning widely. Ford headed to the showers with a smile on his face. 

They spent the day in the library, working side by side in silence. Ford felt a bit giddy with his newfound ability to openly admire all of Fiddleford’s little habits that he should have realized he was besotted with sooner—the way he sat with one leg folded underneath him, the way he occasionally mouthed the words of an annotation to himself as he wrote it down. The way he didn’t mind the incessant tapping of Ford’s feet and pen as he worked himself up over difficult problems.

Near noon, they had lunch in the center of the quad. It was a sunny April day, perfectly comfortable weather with an amicable breeze and a pervasive faint smell of flowers. Ford wished he could reach out to his friend, maybe lie in the grass with his head on his lap and watch the clouds go by in a perfect bubble of stereotypical romantic comedy joy. But mindful of the steady stream of students going about their business, he only slid his hand across the table and brushed his knuckles across Fiddleford’s wrist.

“This is your happiness.” Fiddleford said. He wasn’t smiling—Ford wasn’t sure what he meant but he scrambled for a meaning in it because his friend’s words were dripping with sincerity.

“I suppose.” Ford’s answer ended in a nervous laugh. 

“You have so much ambition, Ford, so many big world changing plans. You have such dissatisfaction with the status quo of the universe. But given anywhere or anything, this is where your happiness is. Simple. At home.” He slipped his hand into Fords, clenched his fingers around it. “Kind.”

“Well, yes.” Ford said, baffled by the sudden seriousness. “For the moment, at least.”

Fiddleford laughed, ducked his head. The world around them went silent. His hand was no longer in Ford’s and his smile sharpened under curls that hung softly to obscure his eyes.

“Well, Fordsy. I’m glad to share it with you. For the moment.”

“Maybe forever.” Ford said.

“Maybe.” Fiddleford said, and then softly to himself repeated. “Maybe.”

The moment broke in a release of pressure that felt like it should have been accompanied by a thunderclap, and Fiddleford returned to picking at his sandwich. 

At about one in the morning, Ford finally returned to his dorm room, bleary eyed and exhausted with a finished term paper under his arm. He promptly walked straight into his desk and stooped over to grab his knee with a few hissed curses. The dorm seemed to have inverted- the closet that had been on his left this morning was on the right, and his desk and bed had switched walls. So had the window. Ford sat down on the edge of his desk. He must be in the wrong room. The wrong room that had somehow unlocked with his key… and had all his possessions in it. And the same mold spot on the ceiling. 

“Are you okay?”

Ford started and had to catch himself on the desk, triggering another series of crashes as he rescued a lamp from tumbling catastrophically to the floor. There was some displeased sleepy shuffling in the neighbor’s room. Fiddleford was standing by his door.

“I… didn’t see you come in, Fidds.” Ford said. 

“Oh. Sorry I startled you.” He approached Ford and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You should get some rest.”

Fiddleford lay down on Ford’s bed uninvited--Ford climbed in beside him with slight reluctance he couldn’t quite explain. He looked at the view out of his window, which was the same as it was this morning. He looked at Fiddleford’s long blonde eyelashes, fluttering gently in his sleep. And he looked at the alarm clock. Three AM. It didn’t display the date.

Ford rose to consciousness gradually the next morning. He stretched, blushed marginally when he realized his face had been burrowed into Fiddleford’s chest. The other man ran sleep-clumsy fingers through Ford’s hair, gently. 

“G’morning.” Fiddleford said.

Ford closed his eyes and tried to sear the moment into his memory, from the low thread count dorm room sheets to the dim soreness in his neck from sleeping curled up on his side. It was so warm where their bodies were pressed together. Way warmer than Oregon, Ford’s brain supplied, nonsensically. He had never been to Oregon. 

“Where’r you goin?” Fiddleford asked as Ford slipped out of his grasp and sat upright, groaning as his back cracked. When he looked back, Fiddleford was watching him with one eye, blearily. The other half of his face was still scrunched determinedly into the pillow. 

“Shower.” Ford responded, voice rough with sleep. He brushed the back of his hand across Fiddleford’s cheekbone. Warm. Soft skin. Exactly how he had always imagined.

Ford looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked young. It wasn’t often that he thought that—typically he worried over the hints of gray that were already showing at his temples and along his jaw at the age of 21. But this morning he saw a face that had a lot of life left. A lot of bad decisions, probably.

The image in the mirror split and swam double for a moment before the splitting pain in Ford’s head brought him crashing to the floor. It hurt in a visceral, overwhelming way; the pain was like the brightest light and the most tooth-rattlingly loud noise in existence, simultaneous with his skull being crushed in a vice. He was distantly aware of his extremities twitching uncontrollably.

“-ot you.” A voice said. “I’ve got you for a minute more.”

Ford was sitting on the overstuffed and broken down couch from his parent’s den in New Jersey, surrounded by a featureless void that somehow faintly suggested the teal of their wallpaper without being any color at all.   
“It’s going to hurt again.” Fiddleford said from where he was sitting right beside Ford. One of his feet was tucked up underneath him. “I can only help for so much longer. This is all temporary now.”

“Isn’t everything?” Ford responded.

“For you. You humans, so ephemeral and chaotic. You pine after sameness. Immortality. Home.” He waved a hand in apparent frustration, although whether it was at the scope of human stupidity or at his difficulty articulating what he wanted to say Ford wasn’t entirely sure. “So much histrionics and whining. You think pain is the worst thing. You’re terrified of death as if-- as if endings are the worst part of all this.”

“This is an ending. You don’t seem to be thrilled about it.” Ford replied. 

“This is damnation, Stanford. You know where I’m going. You know what will happen to me without you.” He grabbed Ford’s forearm, hard. “Nothing. Another eternity of nothing.”

“I will not let you torment me because it’s better than nothing.” Ford said. “Not anymore.” 

Fiddleford slammed his fists against the back of the couch and shrieked; there was nothing inhuman about it, just an unrestrained throat-rending scream of fury. He dug his fingers in under his own ribs and tore out fistfuls flesh and gristle, tendons standing out in his neck and shoulder from the strain. Without pausing for breath the scream transitioned into words, deafening and omnipresent.

“You should have killed me! You shOULD HAVE KILLED ME! YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME.” Ford sat unscathed in a rising sea of blood as his friend tore himself apart.

“I’m sorry.” Ford said. He couldn’t hear himself, but he assumed Bill could. “You weren’t going to change me, you were going to destroy me. I know you were sincere, I know you don’t see the difference, but I am not the same thing as you. I can’t let you stay, Fidds.” 

Suddenly, there was silence. Or rather, relative silence. It took a few moments for Ford to recognize the faint background hum was the bunker machinery and not his ears ringing. He sat up, clutching at the rail on the side of the gurney to steady himself as the pain in his head made his vision fuzz out for a moment. The doctor was idling right next to him. He took a moment to internalize the fact that he was certainly alive; this situation wasn’t one he expected to find in heaven and hell- well. That was going to be something different entirely. 

When he managed to get to his feet he went for the painkillers in the cabinet before he went for the doctor’s controls, but he did edge between the gurney and the wall to avoid having to shove him out of the way. 

Ford sat on the floor for a while and faded in and out while waiting for the pain meds to kick in. The world was quiet. The inside of his head felt blank, like it was full of cotton instead of flesh. How was he going to get the doctor back up the stairs?

In the end, he didn’t. He locked the door into the hideout and waited at the top to blast the confused and frightened man point blank with the memory gun. On the long walk home, he thought about the doctor waking up cold and bewildered. He wondered if the other man was limping along just out of sight behind him, just as sore and disoriented, believing he was utterly alone. He wished, vaguely, that he could have shot himself too. They could have woken up together, equally confused, and returned to the world together. But Fiddleford’s magic cure wouldn’t work on him any more, not anymore than Bill’s would. For better or for worse, his mind was his own, his choices were his own, and his life was his own to a degree that the universe had perhaps never intended for a human being. 

He looked down at his hands, six fingers raw red with numbing cold and bruised across the knuckles. Who got to decide what a human being was supposed to be, anyway? 

Back home, his boots tracked slush through the entryway. He sat on the couch and the world tilted until he found himself lying flat on his back. A stack of Cipher theories crumpled under his cheek. 

Ford woke up in a dorm room bed with someone’s hand in his hair. He tried to move, but found his limbs hopelessly tangled in linens that seemed to resist his movements with intent to devour him. A single eye opened on the ceiling, casting a faint gold luminescence across the coarse plaster tile. 

“You’re not real.” Ford said as Bill drifted lazily towards him, rocking from side to side like a scrap of paper fluttering off the side of his desk in slow motion. 

“What is real, Sixer?” Bill said. “You’re here. You said we’re not the same but I am you. As long as you remember me I will be part of you.” He laughed, eye narrowing to a slit with glee. “And that’s forever now, isn’t it? Are we home?”

Ford didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and let himself be pulled back into darkness.


End file.
